Darren Effect

by Libby Creelman

  “I just didn’t care for the barking, that’s all, Derm.”

  “She tried to leap from a moving vehicle!”

  “We’d stopped at a red light.”

  “It’d turned green.”

  “No it never.”

  Heather put her hands up. “Stop!”

  Both Tracey and Derm looked surprised.

  “So it wasn’t a dream, Tracey?” Heather asked more gently.

  Tracey shook her head.

  “Did you ever for a moment think it was a dream?”

  Tracey’s hands had begun to shake and she was not making eye contact with anyone.

  “That was no dream,” Derm repeated, chuckling. “Would you shut the fuck up?” Tracey whispered.

  Derm’s mouth fell open and he turned to Heather. “See what I got to put up with?”

  Heather felt unprofessionally repulsed by this man, though it was not the first time. She knew Tracey was starting to withdraw and wished it was within her power to forestall the terrible night the girl likely had ahead of her. Shouldn’t it be within her power? Was that not why Tracey was here? Heather was doing more than wasting people’s time; her uselessness was hurting them.

  Perhaps her mother had a point about a leave of absence. For Tracey’s sake, if not her own.

  Heather leaned forward over her desk, doing her best to pretend Derm was not present. “Tracey, listen to me. It’s very important that you stay on your meds.” Heather spoke softly, almost inaudibly, knowing that sometimes this was the best way to reach a person.

  Tracey’s eyes flickered.

  “A waste of time,” Derm said. “That’s what this is.”

  “Tracey,” Heather repeated. “The meds won’t work unless you take them as prescribed. You won’t get better.”

  Tracey looked at Heather. “I know.”

  Early in their relationship, Heather and Benny had embarked on a number of sightseeing adventures. In a sense, Heather later realized, they had been dating. One day they drove south to look for whales, Benny manoeuvring the car too fast on the twists and rises, yet Heather lulled by the movement of the car. She had a cold and had suggested going another day, but he had arrived that morning with cough drops and decongestants, juice boxes and tissues, a hot water bottle and blanket. She had laughed at him, at his persistence, as he ushered her into the car and propped her up, telling her she only had to sit there so he could glance over every once and in a while to look at her.

  They were on their way back, as far as Witless Bay, when he pulled over. Out on the water hung the cloudy remains of a whale’s blow. A whale-watching boat was heading directly for it.

  Dazed, and knowing she should be in bed, Heather nevertheless joined Benny at the edge of the road, not wanting him to know she’d lost all interest.

  He had just seen the whale. He said he was disappointed Cooper wasn’t there to see it too.

  “This would be just the thing to get him off that bloody television. He watches too much of it. Isabella lets him. I told her she’s lazy and just wants to avoid an argument.”

  Heather saw the whale come high up out of the water and crash onto its side. She could hear the blissful cries from the tourists, all crowded onto one side of the boat now idling five metres from the whale.

  “You called her lazy?” Heather asked. She thought she might be losing her voice.

  “A pushover, that’s why kids like her.”

  “You were teasing her?”

  “Perhaps a bit.”

  “When did you have this conversation?”

  Heather tried to imagine Benny and his wife in their house. In the kitchen perhaps. He is bringing plates in from the dining room table and she is stacking the dishwasher. They start to talk about their son.

  “A few nights ago. Look. Heather, you missed it, the whale.” She blew her nose. “Where?”

  “Right there!” He laughed. “Look where I’m pointing.”

  “No. Where did you have this conversation?”

  “Come on,” he said sadly. “Why do you ask me these things?”

  She turned to him, surprised. “Just curious.”

  “Look! You missed it again. I think there’s two of them.” He glanced at her. She wasn’t sure, but she sensed he had to stop himself from stepping away from her. “It was after we had gone to bed. We often discuss Cooper then, because he’s asleep. It’s a convenient time for us. Don’t give me that look.”

  “When was the last time you and your wife had intercourse?”

  “The last time?”

  “That you had intercourse.”

  “A few nights ago.”

  “A few nights ago?”

  “What do you expect, Heather, after ten years of marriage? It happens. Particularly if I’ve been away.”

  “Away with me?”

  “The sex is mechanical.”

  Yet he did it. He couldn’t stop himself. If he could stop himself, wouldn’t he?

  “I thought your marriage was a shell.”

  “Heather, it is. It is.”

  He was looking at her with astonishment. “You don’t want to possess me, do you?” he asked.

  Heather shrugged. She felt herself backing down.

  “That’s not what I want,” he said. “To possess you.”

  She never asked him such a question again. If she had, she knew it was unlikely he would be so honest a second time.

  “You don’t look so well, Heather. Let’s get you home.”

  The Quigleys were her last appointment before lunch. As soon as they were gone, Heather grabbed her phone and began dialing Benny’s home number, then stopped and put the receiver down. It was pointless. He wasn’t there.

  Outside the day was overcast and dimming. She imagined going into the palliative care unit and explaining. It was never about possessing you, Benny, it was about being able to count on you. To be there at breakfast, or in the middle of the night. To be there if I woke up and discovered there was something I’d forgotten to tell you. So I wouldn’t have to make mental notes, I must remember to tell Benny this.

  That wasn’t about possession.

  “It was about expectation,” she said aloud.

  But Benny was dying. That wasn’t what you said to a dying man, whether you loved him or you didn’t.

  She left her office. The snow was mixed with rain as she crossed LeMarchant Road. She was bareheaded and her hands were cold and she was wearing only a raincoat. She thought of Benny’s habit of enveloping her cold hands in his hot ones.

  She stopped, dug out her cellphone and standing there on the sidewalk, called the hospital.

  “Are you family?” the nurse asked.

  A man came out of a stone house and stopped when he saw Heather. He smiled, and in the midst of her distraction, she wondered what kind of a smile it was. Lecherous or sympathetic? What did he see on her face?

  “I just need to know how he is,” she told the nurse.

  “I’m sorry, my love, we’re not allowed to give out information except to family.”

  “I just need to know — ”

  “I’m sorry, my love.”

  She wandered up and down the short streets, unable to locate her car. By the time she did her hair was lank and soaked; gazing at it in the rear-view window, she saw that nothing remained of the feeble styling she had given it that morning.

  He died two days later, the third of December, just after midnight. Heather’s mother heard of it first, but didn’t call her daughter with the news until the following evening.

  Heather was sitting on the edge of her bed, eating crackers, when she answered the phone. At first everything around her seemed to recede as though sucked away with an enormous outgoing wave. Then the room grew still. She put the crackers on the bedside table; they would sit there for weeks. There had been some things she still needed to tell him. All day he had been gone and she had not known.

  “You waited all day to tell me?” Heather said to her mother. “Were you afraid I�
��d go crazy? Whose side are you on?” She slammed the phone down. She was aware that reason had left the room. She was not sorry to see it go.

  Chapter Four

  Heather and Mandy arrived at the Canadian Wildlife Service building early one Monday in mid-January and discovered Darren Foley’s green government truck by the rear entrance, the tailgate still down. This was a relief to Heather. They’d had mixed success finding and following this man, but today had risen particularly early. In fact it was only just getting light out now. Heather parked at the back of the lot, behind a dumpster, and the two waited in silence. Though it was the time of year for short stormy days, the air was still and almost mild. When Darren emerged from the building a few minutes later lugging his gear, it was Heather who saw him first and grabbed Mandy’s arm. The two slunk down in their seats.

  An hour later the three of them were in the woods. There was little snow and Heather could see here and there patches of green luminous moss. The sky was cloudless and blue. Moose had trampled the earth and made the paths slick with mud and droppings. Occasionally they heard a remote, muted crash and were aware of an odour reminiscent of horses.

  “How’s the story coming along?” Heather asked her sister.

  “What story?”

  There was a junction. A narrower, less used route turned right and inland. Oddly, this was the path Darren’s tracks had taken. Heather stepped onto it.

  “Heather. Hold on a minute.”

  Heather turned to see her sister place a hand against a skinny fir, which bent slightly, its roots lifting a mound of moss. “You know what I think? I think Darren Foley is boring.”

  “Maybe he’s meant to be boring. Maybe that’s the point.”

  “Yeah, and maybe he’s a sicko. He walks miles into the woods. Finds a beach, then mutilates what we think are dead birds.”

  “How is that boring? Besides, I thought you two cohabited? I thought you knew him by the way he looked around at road construction?”

  “How well does anyone know anyone?” “How’s it going with Bill?”

  Mandy grinned. “Bill? Bill wants to know what you and I are up to all the time.”

  “Have you told him?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “I don’t know. Bill’s instincts are usually pretty good on this stuff. He thinks I should write more sex scenes, for example. Did you hear that?”

  “What?”

  “Branches breaking?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, now fuck.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve got crap on me, from that tree.”

  “It’s probably sap. Smell it.”

  “I am not going to smell it.”

  They looked at each other.

  Heather was following a man she’d never met through the woods and enjoying it. What was it she felt? A yearning. Like an addiction. The promise of intoxication.

  She remembered getting in her car and circling Benny’s house, something she could no longer do. She dismissed the memory.

  “There’s been a lot of intersections, Heather. Are you convinced we’re still following the man of the hour?”

  “Definitely. The beach can’t be far.”

  “We’re nowhere near a beach.”

  “Listen, another half hour and we’ll call it quits?”

  “All right.”

  “Mandy?”

  “What?”

  “Just wondering if you brought your binoculars?”

  Mandy flung her backpack onto the ground, splattering it with mud, but Heather knew not to comment on this. She just wanted to keep going.

  “In case I see some birds,” she explained.

  “Is it this way? You can’t be serious, this isn’t a proper path.”

  “Those are his boot tracks. Who else could they belong to?”

  Mandy passed her the binoculars before going on ahead. “Don’t drop them.”

  Heather put the binoculars around her neck. Darren Foley never went anywhere without his heavy black binoculars hanging from his neck, and he generally walked with one hand placed on them, as though they were an extension of his body. Mandy’s binoculars were much smaller and more ladylike, but Heather was anxious to get a good clear look at a bird and identify it. She was aware of flocks darting through the canopy, the only proof they were there a surge of high-pitched calls and whistles.

  She longed to stop them somehow and give them names: chickadee, kinglet, warbler, siskin, flycatcher, vireo. Identifying them would be like hunting: having one in her sights, understanding what it was, pulling the trigger. Though she didn’t want to kill the birds. She simply wanted to place a name on them.

  She headed after Mandy, but slowly, establishing some distance between them. After a while the path grew even muddier and less defined. As she pushed aside the branches of trees and bushes, the smell of fir and dank earth rose up. The tracks were so abundant it was impossible to make out an individual print — man or woman or moose. Heather was aware they were heading south, when they should be heading north, or even east. South would only carry them deeper into the interior of the headland. On second thought it might be best to keep up with Mandy. The path made a bend around a massive rock outcrop and dropped into a basin of small pools and stunted trees. Heather stepped onto a hummock of moss — its surface looked so solid and dry — and sunk to her knees. A clump of dead grass topped with white orbs rose inches from her face. She pulled herself free, one hand protecting Mandy’s binoculars.

  She stood rigid and listened.

  “Mandy?”

  The path left the bog and passed again into woods. Heather had to assume Mandy had continued this way. She glanced up and saw the day had clouded over. The sky was small, close and white. For the first time, the woods seemed gloomy and hostile. The path had entered a dense lowland. In the darkest areas, the trunks of trees snaked along the ground for several feet before twisting upwards in unison. Heather noticed a patch of lightness off to one side, where perhaps the forest thinned, but as she stepped towards it, she saw through the tangle of vegetation a pile of rocks and some white boards leaning against each other. Oddly, evidence of human activity made the hair on the back of her neck lift. She felt cold.

  She needed to stop her fear before it engulfed her. She stepped back onto the path, or what remained of it. She wished for an outdoor adventure someplace more friendly and civilized, like Spruce Cove.

  She and Benny had returned to Spruce Cove regularly, usually in the spring before it got busy. Being seen and recognized together had always been a concern.

  Why had she never come right out with it and asked him to leave his marriage? Was it ambivalence? Was it fear? She had asked herself this many times in the past couple of months. There were occasions when she had been unable to look him straight in the face. How had that been, she asked herself, to love a man who spared his family but did not spare you? There had been sporadic, sneaky pain so aggressive it erased everything else, but it had not become steady company until the end.

  No sign of Mandy at all.

  Fear. There it was again. Heather took out her cellphone and dialed Mandy’s cell. She made several attempts, thinking she might have made an error, her hands were shaking that badly, but it rang for a while and then abruptly stopped.

  It was on one of their first visits to Spruce Cove together that Benny had strolled down to the water with several tennis balls and his racket, which he used to hit the balls down the beach, over and over again, for Inky to fetch. Finally the dog collapsed onto the sand with his tongue nearly leaping out of his skull, no longer barking, and Heather was grateful.

  After that, whenever they brought Inky, Benny would bring the racket and balls.

  Heather remembered the pollen and slowed, noticing for the first time the snow flurries. She had forgotten about the pollen. It had been everywhere, coming off the evergreens around their cabin as though from an aerosol can. She could see it in even the weakest of breezes: yellow-g
reen clouds of seeds lifting from the cones. A film of it on the windshield she drew her name in — a cocky, adolescent act. Down at the beach it rode in on the sea and formed a narrow band in the surf. At first they couldn’t figure out what it was. They thought pollution, some kind of spill. There was another ribbon of it higher on the beach. Heather rolled it between her fingers.

  “I think it’s pollen,” she said.

  He pressed his hand against the small of her back. “You’re a genius. I should bring you everywhere.”

  She sat down on the sand and alternated between watching the pollen weightless on the water and Inky racing after the ball and, for several minutes, had been satisfied — smug — with herself for identifying the pollen. Then something happened. It happened only a few times, all those years, before they knew about the cancer.

  He tossed the ball up and struck it with his powerful smooth forehand.

  She wanted more than this. She wanted Benny to leave his wife. If not now, then she wanted to hear him say there was at least a chance, someday.

  Instead he said, “How’s work?” dropping the racket and sitting beside her on the sand. He put an arm around her waist and dragged her towards him, pretending it was a great effort so that she grinned, then he picked up one of her legs and placed it across his own.

  “Now then, missus,” he said. “Who was on the roster this week?”

  It was not appropriate to tell him details of her clients’ lives, but Heather was rarely interested in denying Benny anything. What’s more, it was difficult to resist the way he listened — his soft attraction to her.

  She considered her week, the clients she’d seen. She recalled her last appointment on Friday with a sinking feeling.

  “What is it?” Benny asked.

  “Rosemarie,” she said. “I’ve been seeing her for months. Yesterday I sent her back to her psychiatrist.”

  “Why?”

  “She needs someone who can write a prescription.” She laughed, but it wasn’t funny. She looked at Benny. “For a serotonin re-uptake inhibitor.”

  Three couples — a crowd for this time of year — were coming down to the beach. Seeing them, Inky began to dig frantically in the sand for his ball, then ran off to greet them. Heather thought it was unlikely she’d see Rosemarie again.